A Very Brief Review Of Obama’s State of The Union Speech Along With Marco Rubio and Rand Paul’s Responses

If you skipped Obama’s speech last night, don’t worry because you didn’t miss a lot. The speech was like a long laundry list of spending proposals from a French bureaucrat, much of which was carried over from his previous speeches. The three parts that stood out were Obama’s call for amnesty for illegals, gun control, and increasing the minimum wage to $9 an hour.

Rubio gave the Republican response and as always, he had a tough job. The President gets to give the big speech in front of Congress and then the response is given in a closet somewhere, with no audience. While Rubio did a much better job than Bobby Jindal’s almost universally panned response, his speech turned out to be such bland and forgettable boilerplate that the most memorable part of it was when he awkwardly reached for water. While some people have raved about Rubio’s performance, it’s hard to imagine that his speech convinced a single person to flock to the Republican banner.

After Rubio spoke, Rand Paul gave the Tea Party response — and the GOP could learn a lot from it. Paul didn’t sound like a typical politician, he gave some well earned criticism to his own party and he effectively ripped Obama and Congress. His tone and charisma were memorable and he came across as authentic. Obama and, I hate to say it, Rubio came across like the same old, same old. The Republican Party needs to sound more like Rand Paul did last night and less like the same old, same old.